Music: And Why Would Should Listen to the Problems it Faces

Music is something that cultures all around the world can relate to.  While the type of music may vary and the importance may differentiate, it is almost always present in some way shape or form.  The music industry in the United States is something quickly facing vast crisis for a number of reasons, not the least of which being, the rise of technology.

Music has had a long standing history of allowing artists to support themselves by doing what they love.  With the rise of technology, however, while new music is being produced and published, the profit which the musician receives has been significantly reduced.  In the past the consumer was limited to purchasing the entire album to hear any particular song, now, the consumer can pay a fraction of the cost for a single hit downloaded straight to their device of choice.  Beyond the invention of instant downloading, there is also the increasing issue of piracy.

In a this country where the economy is on increasingly less stable ground, the music industry has taken a turn for the worse.  Technological literacy is on the rise, people are consistently learning more and more about how to take advantage of the technology they have on hand.  The increase of pirating on a worldwide scale has become a real issue for the survival of individual artists in particular.

A particularly relevant story comes from the mid 2000's there was the invention of a music downloading and sharing site called Napster.  While this site and company has since been shut down, it set the first precedence for sharing music freely, essentially cutting out the necessity of actually supporting the artists and unavoidably the producing companies which these artists 'belong' to.

Courtesy of secretofthefed.com

Another large issue the industry is facing is control.  As of 1996 when the Telecommunications Act passed, there is virtually no limit to the number of radio stations and production companies that corporations can own.  A highly unfortunate situation arises when this happens, conglomerate market control.  Inevitably when the act was passed a few leading companies made moves to dominate the market place by slowly swallowing smaller companies.  In the music industry today while the names of production companies and radio stations may vary, three main companies have the majority of the control, meaning the music industry is dominated by an oligopoly.  These three companies according to Media & Culture (Campbell 2012) are Time Warner Music group, Sony Entertainment Music Group, and Universal Music group, with independent companies only making up 12% of the total market.

The real question is now, why should we care? There are a few choice companies deciding what prepackaged pre-approved music you're going to hear.  Unless you go out of your way to find the independent artists who don't fit the company mold for the highest profit margin, you won't hear them.  Most everyone tries to follow a formula that will yield the highest profit margins the fastest, which  edges out individuality that many of these independent artists boast.

Ultimately, the music industry is in crisis for a number of reasons.  Pirating takes away money from the artists and companies, while the companies are slowly edging out many individual artists themselves.  The people in the end who are losing are the consumers, and the artists themselves.  If you are an artists and you do not fit the typical formula, it will be a hard time trying to find a company to take you on.  If you are a part of a label, especially if it's smaller, pirating will be incredibly damaging to your income.  We should all be demanding better piracy laws, a crackdown on the theft of peoples livelihoods.  Also, why should an oligopoly be acceptable in the music industry when it isn't elsewhere? We should all be demanding our diversity.